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Message: <blockquote data-quote="krupintupple" data-source="post: 5343970" data-attributes="member: 58300">taking a look at the SRD, i note that the black dragon's class skills are hide, move silently and swim. assuming that it maxes out all of these skills - which i suppose it would, considering its HD and large amount of skill points - that means that it'd have roughly a +13 modifier to the first two skills. these in of themselves could easily make for a fairly sneaky dragonling, perhaps skulking about alleyways and leaping from rooftop to balcony without stirring up too much surprise. realistically, it could probably make it from an alley to the PCs base of operations, or inn-room, or what have you without being seen by the average joe.furthermore, i also notice that a young black dragon, however fearful it might appear, is actually only a medium-sized creature. this really isn't that large and, combined with it's ability to breathe water, may i suggest a rather novel way of hiding the dragon from most detection: hide it in a large barrel filled with dyed water, that looks like red wine.simply have the PC buy a cart or something, claiming to be a wine merchant, and have several large casks with removable tops. heck, you could even have actual wine in several of the casks, but for the dragon's cask, maybe fill it with spoiled swamp water, coloured the hue of wine? if anyone asks, they can take a peek in while your character informs the curious spectator "blast! that one's gone bad, see? strangest thing too...bugger smells like a swamp!" the added benefit is that carts and barrels are both fairly commonplace, and your sneaky dragon could easily slip in and out of said barrel. finally, with wine-hued liquid in a dark wooden barrel, noone would see a dragon curled up at the bottom. it'd be so dark that most people would barely see an inch or two into the cask.best of all, this is a decidedly non-magical approach to solving your problem, and it also has a built-in security system in such a sneaky city: really, how often does someone who's over 2nd level decide to poke around anything once a detect magic has indicated it's entirely nonmagical? my experience is - unless it's gold or obvious gems, almost never.now, as for actually introducing the draconic cohort, perhaps the player receives a strange deed to an abandoned garage, from a recently deceased alchemist's will? in the garage is said cart, loaded down with barrels. perhaps, the dragon was hiding out inside the garage via an underground stream - that served as a sewage system - and when the players approach, it panicked and leapt into the nearest runoff-filled cask?to sweeten the deal and prevent some idiot PC from piping up "...but you've got the wrong guy, that's NOT my dead uncle!", exclaim that the barrister informs them that once his legal stipend of 75gp is paid, they do have full access to the possessions of his former uncle's estate. then add the sentence that will get any PC salivating "...of course, nothing has been properly identified of course. if you like, i could put you in contact with a mage of some repute?" this serves to make them immediately WANT to get to the place in question, as soon as possible, without blowing your carefully set up introduction story. greed is an excellent motivator. let me know what you think, and good luck <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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